Posts Tagged ‘matchmaking’

Omiai has a strict privacy policy to alay women’s fears about online dating

According to a recent study by Trend Soken, the phenomenon of the “Social Cinderella” is one of the driving forces behind changing attitudes towards internet dating among young women. “Social Cinderellas” are women who snag “high spec guys” (i.e. well-educated, good-looking men with high salaries) via social networking sites. As stories about these fairy-tale romances spread, more and more women have begun to warm to the idea of internet dating.

Out of the 500 single women in their 20s and 30s interviewed for the study, 81% said that they felt had few chances for romantic meetings in their daily lives and 58% believed that social media was an effective tool for finding their dream man. Columnist Ai Azawa states in the report that modern Japanese women are throwing themselves into their work and are also really into self-improvement, as a result, they’ve got higher standards and are not particularly interested in settling for the men in their immediate social circle.

Azawa says that she often hears Social Cinderella stories. But how common are they in practice? Out of the 61.4% of respondents who claimed to regularly use social media, 16% said that they’d encountered a dreamy guy in this way and 9.4% said they’d even managed to strike up a friendship with the guy in question.

The study uses the term social-networking services to loosely refer to a whole slew of sites, from professional matchmaking websites to social networking sites like Facebook and Mixi, so it’s important to bear in mind that women are not necessarily signing up for dating services. One 26-year-old women questioned for the study mentions attending “meetings of social networking communities.” This could mean joining a group of people who meet over shared interests. Not necessarily aimed at encouraging people to hook up, social clubs tied to a hobby may be one of the ways that women are using the web to widen their social network as they fish around for potential partners.

There are also matchmaking sites linked into Facebook. — sites like Omiai, which currently has 270,000 registered members. Omiai caters to the Cinderella element by boasting that 2,313 of the members are guys who have annual earnings of over ¥10 million. As many are cautious about the perils of online dating, the company highlights its safety policy which allows users to remain anonymous while chatting with a potential partner.

Safety and privacy is a huge concern for Japanese women, so other social networking dating clubs take the risk out of going to meet with a stranger by bulking up the numbers. Pairs of friends who sign up for the rather unfortunately named Nikukai (meat club) service can go on double dates together at yakiniku (Korean barbeque restaurants). Nomitomi (drinking buddies) is a service that holds group mixers for singles, meaning singles don’t have to risk it alone with an unknown person.

If you’re single, looking for love and live in Itoigawa city, Niigata Prefecture, the local government will be happy to pick up the hefty tab for registering with an online dating agency. According to a recent article in J-Cast, the municipality of Itoigawa has taken the unusual step of partnering up with professional matchmakers Zwei in the hopes that young local singletons will find love through the web.

Declining birth rates threaten the future productivity of Japan, so it’s in the best interests of local government to help romance bloom between residents via konkatsu (marriage hunting) activities. By lending financial support to machikon(large-scale singles mixers), konkatsu seminars, day trips and group dates, the local government obviously wants its citizens to make babies.

Unfortunately there’s little hard data available to show whether spending public money on konkatsu activities actually leads to marriages. In March 2011 the Cabinet Office published a survey on marriage and family structures. Out the 1698 municipalities that took part, 552 had actively supported konkatsu activites. However, 283 of these had stopped these activities because of a perceived limit to their effectiveness, lack of funds and a decline in demand. Some simply held one event and that was it.

Itoigawa, however, don’t seem to have done too badly. Since it began supporting konkatsu activities in 2007, 18 local couples have tied the knot. Feeling it could do better and hearing about a similar scheme in Inami, Wakayama Prefecture, where the municipality helped citizens out with Zwei’s fees, Itoigawa decided to call in the professionals.

Single people aged 20 or above who’ve been living in Itoigawa for more than a year and are up to date with their residency taxes can get the initial fees of ¥63,840 (roughly $621) paid by local government; however, they will have to foot the monthly membership fees themselves. Zwei offers quite a comprehensive service, not only organizing omiai (interviews to gauge marriage potential between parties), but also mixers where people might find someone special.

It’s too early to say if this scheme will be a success. In Wakayama, four people applied for financial support with fees for Zwei in 2011, though it’s not known if any of these led to marriage. Nobody applied in 2012, despite inquiries from parents with unmarried children.

One of the key stumbling blocks might be the stigma attached to online dating in Japan. The launch of Xlace, another konkatsu website, back in April this year, however, does seem to indicate that the market is slowly growing; whether other local governments will also enlist help from online dating agencies to stimulate couple generation remains to be seen.

A new way of networking is catching on with the twenty- to thirtysomething crowd in Japan. Social lunches arranged over the web, where those in similar industries get together for an informal chat have been growing in popularity lately. At the forefront of this trend is the Facebook app Social Lunch which matches up pairs of professionals for friendly lunches. The idea is that going with a friend you already know takes a lot of the stress out of occasion. According to J-Cast, since the app launched in October last year, 20,000 people have registered for the service and around 900 social lunch dates have taken place as a result.

The app, produced by SyncLunch Inc., is simple to use: Team up with a friend in a similar profession, type in preferred location and time and it will match you up with another pair who may be useful for you to network with for a lunch date. J-Cast’s writer signed up with a former colleague who was a graphic designer and was paired up with a couple of guys, one of whom was looking for design tips for his new website. The lunch was a success and seemed a possible opening to future collaborations.

A similar option is the Twitter-based Hirukai service from Digital Garage Inc. Instead of meeting at a restaurant, though, the meet-up organizer offers a space in their office for others to gather in. Bringing along their own bento lunches, those attending can swap ideas, or sandwiches, in an informal atmosphere.

The model for Social Lunch borrows something from gokon(group dating), in which the presence of friends takes much of the stress out of an initial encounter with a potential partner. As marriage rates fall, gokon, konkatsu(marriage hunting) and now machikonevents have been on the rise and this has been accompanied by a slew of new apps to help young Japanese find Mr. or Ms. Right. As young Japanese are increasingly willing to try out group dating, it seems that the next logical step is for go-getters to find business partners by using similar methods.

What could be more romantic than a strawberry picking outing with a bunch of young singles in the pretty countryside of Tochigi Prefecture? Well, it depends on your attitude to romance, but matchmaking events like the Yellow Handkerchief Party are becoming increasingly popular and practical approach for singletons desperate for a good match.

According to Himote Times, in response to falling birthrates, local governments have reacted by jumping on the konkatsu(marriage hunting) bandwagon and setting up group dating miai for residents who find it hard to hook up with the opposite sex in the course of their normal lives. Far from considering such events as deeply unhip, many single people view the get-togethers as safer than the ones organized by more commercial interests.

Just recently Aichi Prefecture launched a group called Aichi Encounter Support Service. The service’s mission is to set up various miai events in the prefecture. In Ishikawa Prefecture, the Chamber of Commerce has set up a Yukata Coupling Party, a mixer where the participants dress in traditional Japanese summer clothing for July this year.

Even JR have got in on the konkatsu action. According to Mainichi, on June 20 a train on the Koumi Line that runs between Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures will host a dating party for train enthusiast singles in the 25-40 age bracket. Entertainment will come in the form of train-themed games and quizzes.

It seems that commercial konkatsu events are becoming increasingly specialized since the boom caught the public’s interest back in 2008. Last year we reported on the popularity of gorukon, dating events for golf enthusiasts, and this year it seems that pekon (pet matchmaking parties) are now all the rage. Taking advantage of the recent trend for pet-friendly cafes, single dog owners can attend events such as this one held at the Blue Dog Café.

Whether you’d like to hook up with someone under the watchful eye of your local government or prefer to attend a private event where you can meet someone who shares your passion (be it for trains or dogs) similar pricing systems seem to apply across the board: Men have to shell out more. The Yellow Handkerchief event sets men back ¥4,000, while women only pay ¥1,000, while the pekon event we mentioned costs ¥4,500 for men and ¥4,000 for women. While the dating scene may be undergoing a revolution in Japan, the old-fashioned notion of men footing (at least the majority of) the bill still applies.

Members of the social group Gaijin Golfers get in some putting practice on the manicured greens of the Windsor Park Golf and Country Club in Ibaraki Prefecture. (Edan Corkill photo)

No, this isn’t a kind of confidence trick, but rather a new trend in the dating scene. An amalgam of the words golf (gorufu) and gokon (group dating), the gorukon scene is a natural progression from the recent craze for golf bars, where you go to play a virtual round of golf while enjoying a drink. They became popular last year with the invention of a simulated software system that mimics the experience of playing out on the links.

A gorukon date would typically involve a group of single men and women, evenly matched in numbers, if not by their golfing handicap, meeting up at a golf bar to see if they can make a match. Gokon is a group blind date in which some of those attending are mutual friends, with liberal amounts of alcohol taking some of the awkwardness out of the experience. Typically people might play drinking games to ease their embarrassment, playing golf therefore comes in handy as a good conversation starter, as well as taking away the necessity of drinking heavily.

Japan plays its first match of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, against Côte d’Ivoire this weekend. Although the tournament kicks off two days earlier in São Paulo, for many the Samurai Blue’s opening game ushers in the event, along with the activities that would normally raise eyebrows but get a pass every four years, such […]